Beat the Band

VOYA - Angelina E. Barnard

To Cooper, there is nothing worse than a group health project on social diseases. Things might not be so bad if he had an attractive female partner. In Calame's second book, readers will be laughing out loud as Coop's social life takes a nosedive, thanks to project partner Hot Dog Helen, the school outcast. This novel is filled with hilarious misadventures and teenage boy humor. Reviewer: Angelina E. Barnard, Teen Reviewer

VOYA - Madelene Rathbun Barnard

A 1, and a 2, and a 3 . . . Beat the Band is a rhythmic ride complete with high school antics. Plus it is easy to read. Even if you cannot dance to it, the main characters' music—or should I say, attempts at playing music—gives this book an American Band Stand high score. Calame brings back the dynamic hilarious trio of Coop, Matt, and Sean, first introduced in Swim the Fly (Candlewick, 2009/VOYA August 2009). Their life goal is to "keep their [school] year from going up in flames" and to meet girls. If you are looking for a 1950s version of teen life, this is not the book for you. There is contemporary gutter humor focusing on the age-old male teen rite of passage. Whether the characters are getting to first base or rocking out in a band ("to get the girls of course"), Calame provides a very entertaining, laugh—out-loud read. In the end, boy meets girl, she is not totally repulsed, and life rocks on in Beat the Band. The raw comic relief will keep teens reading. Plus, this screenwriter-turned-young-adult-author has deftly inserted the lesson that the good girl character wins over cosmetic looks. This reviewer looks forward to the future antics of Coop, Matt, and Sean. Reviewer: Madelene Rathbun Barnard

Children's Literature - Claudia Mills

Calame gives the next installment of the "epic" escapades of tenth-grader Cooper Redmond and his friends in this smashingly hilarious sequel to Swim the Fly. Cooper has big plans for the new semester, chiefly focusing on major league sexual conquests (though he has yet to kiss his first girl), plans that are disastrously threatened when he is paired with the class pariah, "Hotdog Helen," to give a health class presentation on safe sex. The only way to salvage the situation? Create a rock band so beyond-cool that all the high school babes will soon be throwing themselves at his feet. The only problems with this solution? Well, for starters, the lack of any musical talent and/or experience on the part of the band members, Cooper's dad's crazy zeal to distract himself from job-seeking by reliving his own rock-star-wannabe past, a plagiarized demo tape that is sure to be discovered any minute, and a random explosion or two. Just about every single scene is side-splittingly, gut-bustingly riotous (there are also some genuinely poignant and touching scenes toward the end for the satisfying conclusion), and just about every single line is a comic masterpiece. I could not stop laughing myself silly at Cooper's nonstop stream of sophomoric, immature, raunchy humor. Calame's intended audience will be laughing themselves sick. This is a very funny book. Reviewer: Claudia Mills, Ph.D.

School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up—Narrator Nick Podehl excels at embodying hilarious teenage male characters, and his voicing of 15-year-old Cooper Redmond is no exception. Podehl is not new to Cooper or his friends Matt and Sean—he took on all three in Don Calame's Swim the Fly (2009; Sept. 2010, p. 66). In that book, the focus was on nice but nerdy Matt, with Cooper as his obnoxious sidekick. In this sequel (2010, both Candlewick), Coop takes center stage. After being paired up with class pariah, "Hot Dog" Helen, for a health class project on safe sex, Coop is desperate to save his sinking reputation. Despite their lack of talent, he is determined, along with Matt and Sean, to compete in his school's Battle of the Bands. Podehl captures Coop's raunchy, sex obsessed personality as well as his eventual realization that there is more to a relationship than how many "bases you can tag." With his vocal skills and Calame's brilliant, humorous text, Podehl reflects Cooper's maturation as he navigates the ever-challenging world of high school. Podehl's female voices are convincing and his interpretation of Cooper's father is hysterical. This is laugh-out-loud fun, and fans of the series will be pleased and hope that a third book from Sean's point of view will be on the way.—Shari Fesko, Southfield Public Library, MI

Kirkus Reviews

In this side-splitting sequel, Calame details the Swim the Fly (2009) guys' sophomore year, this time from the perspective of horny Cooper. After meeting their goal of seeing a real naked woman last summer, Cooper convinces the boys to set the bar higher: winning the school's Battle of the Bands despite their total lack of musical talent or ability. Coop's real motivation is to use the competition to draw attention away from his unwanted health-class–project pairing with school pariah Helen, which backfires when he ends up falling for her. Coop keeps the laughs coming by using his dubious powers of persuasion to engineer everything from a fart-fest in the school library to a self-tanning experiment that goes horribly wrong, all for the good of the band. With song-title chapter headings providing a subtle soundtrack and the inspired addition of Coop's dad, an unemployed former garage-band member who steals scene after scene with his lessons on getting groupies and amateur pyrotechnics, fans have nothing but more good gross fun to look forward to. (Fiction. 14 & up)